


like having nothing at all

by patrokla



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, M/M, Other, the dove in this fic is very very dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:00:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22476034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patrokla/pseuds/patrokla
Summary: They have a garden in the backyard, and Brian likes to spend his mornings out there with his hands in the dirt. Sometimes he looks up and sees Eliot watching him from the window with an absent sort of smile.
Relationships: Brian (The Magicians)/The Monster, Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh, Quentin Coldwater/The Monster
Comments: 12
Kudos: 92





	like having nothing at all

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes you just need to get back to your grimy roots. Alternate title: be the dative.
> 
> Actual title and epitaph from Refrigerator's ["Lonesome Surprise"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsLEg0rL_kA) \- better known from the Mountain Goats' [cover](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKvm1t6jSrI) of it.
> 
> You can find me getting mad about the Magicians on [tumblr](https://leguin.tumblr.com).

_I had a name_   
_Had a place_   
_Like the clothes I wear_   
_The holes grow everywhere_   
_Til it's like having nothing at all_   
_(Here's your lonesome surprise)_

—

The morning is very bright, and the coffee is very hot. He stands barefoot in the kitchen and drinks the coffee black, out of a blue mug with a white cloud on it. It’s a perfect morning by any reasonable standard, the start to what could be a perfect day, and he thinks, _I don’t like my coffee like this_ -

\- and then he sees, for the first time, the other man in the room. 

“Eliot,” Quentin gasps, finding himself in the word, and Eliot looks up at him from the kitchen table and sighs.

“It’s only been a few minutes,” he says, face twisting in annoyance, “I thought it’d last longer than that.”

And then he stands up, and walks towards Quentin, who is still clutching his cup of coffee, puts two fingers on his forehead, and stares into his eyes.

The morning is very bright. He takes a sip of his coffee, and Eliot smiles at him.

“You don’t want any milk or sugar in it?” Eliot asks.

“No, I like it like this,” Brian says, a little self-consciously. 

“Well, if you’re sure,” Eliot says, and he kisses Brian on the cheek.

—

They have a garden in the backyard, and Brian likes to spend his mornings out there with his hands in the dirt. Sometimes he looks up and sees Eliot watching him from the window with an absent sort of smile. Eliot often reminds him that they’re lucky to have so much time to spend together.

Today, Eliot is outside with him, watching him trim the tomato plants.

“Why are you cutting them?” he asks, and Brian looks over, a little surprised by the question.

“It helps them focus on growing tomatoes,” he says, “but I - don’t you know that? I thought you grew up -“

“No, I didn’t,” Eliot interrupts. “I don’t know these things.”

“Right,” Brian says, “Sorry. I don’t know why I thought you did.”

“It happens,” Eliot says, waving a forgiving hand. “So when will the - tomatoes? When can we eat them?”

“Oh, not for a while,” Brian says, lifting up a branch with a few tiny green tomatoes on it. “See, they’re only just getting started. It’ll be a few months.”

“Months,” Eliot says, making a face, and he stares at the little fruits very intently.

Brian lets go of the branch in alarm as the tomatoes begin to grow, flushing red and then darker, grooving and cracking, until one splits open entirely and falls into the dirt, overripe and sunwarm. Brandywine, the seed packet said. Heirloom tomatoes. He doesn’t remember picking them out, but he has vague memories of bright, rich slices of tomato with salt. No memories of this, though. Nothing like this.

“Eliot, what -“

“Just a little trick,” Eliot says, putting a hand on Brian’s shoulder. “I know a few tricks like that.”

“Oh,” Brian breathes, and he looks up at Eliot. “Can you - is it. Can I try?”

“I don’t think so,” Eliot says regretfully. “You’ve tried before. It’s never good.”

He crouches down then, settling on his haunches with one hand on Brian’s arm to steady himself, and he picks up the tomato. Digging his fingers into the wet, glistening middle, and taking a bite out of it like an animal, holding it up in mid-air.

For a second, his face twists up, and he inhales sharply. His hand twitches on Brian’s arm, and then - then his expression smoothes out. He swallows, takes another bite, and offers the rest of the tomato to Brian.

“No, thank you,” Brian says. 

“Hm,” Eliot says, through a mouthful. He chews, thoughtfully, then swallows. Drops the remnant back onto the ground. “I like that.”

“Good,” Brian says, and he makes steady eye contact with Eliot. He’s suddenly terrified to look down at the leftover tomato, torn and scarlet. Like a little corpse, curled in the dirt. 

“Oh no,” Eliot says, and he puts a hand on Brian’s cheek, fingers unpleasantly sticky. “Already?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Brian says, and he realizes that he’s been trembling when Eliot snaps the fingers of his free hand, and freezes Quentin where he is, on his knees in the dirt. _Yes, already_ , Quentin wants to say, because the smell of tomato plants is like nothing else - half a century of sense memory like a kick in the gut. Eliot kneeling down by the struggling plants, their first summer at the Mosaic, cursing at them in a pleasant tone.

“You ungrateful bastards,” he said, voice sickly sweet, “I jury-rig an irrigation system and this is what I get?”

He looked back and winked at Q. “It’s all about tone,” he said, and Quentin laughed.

The sun in the backyard beats down harder and hotter than it had in Fillory, no trees for shade, and Eliot - Eliot, who does not know what a tomato is, Eliot, who is all wrong, is staring at him.

“Is it the tomatoes?” he asks. It’s a rhetorical question in practice, because Quentin is entirely unable to answer him.

“I’m running out of things for you to do,” Eliot says, shaking his head. He sighs. “I guess we can always do it again.”

His fingers burn against Quentin’s skin, and Quentin feels very, very hot, and then he doesn’t. The smell of the tomato plants rises up all around him, and Brian smiles. He’d always wanted to grow tomatoes.

“You like this, don’t you,” Eliot says, and Brian nods bemusedly. 

“I knew it,” he says, and he stands up, hand falling from Brian’s face. “I knew you would.”

—

Sometimes Brian watches Eliot watch him and thinks, idly, _he’s very beautiful_. 

Other times the thought is less idle, and he kisses Eliot, warm all over with intent. He doesn’t mind that Eliot’s a little clumsy - he’s very tall, and very handsome, and Brian gets a little thrill from it, sometimes, the idea that _he’s_ teaching Eliot something. And he loves him, of course, so he doesn’t mind.

Eliot does seem to mind, because more often than not he’ll pull away when they’re in bed, one broad hand on Brian’s face. 

“Are you - okay?” he’ll ask, all dark, hesitant eyes and wild hair, and Brian tries to be gentle when he laughs.

“I’m wonderful,” he says, “are you okay?”

“I’m wonderful,” Eliot will say, usually, and then everything is alright.

—

He’s brushing his teeth one evening when he sees a stranger in the mirror. The moment of recognition never comes, which is what pushes him inside himself, cowering in horror from the plasticine stranger staring at him, hollow eyes in a pale face.

He spits into the sink, the motion automatic, but the toothbrush falls out of his numb fingers onto the counter, and when he looks in the mirror again, he sees Eliot standing behind him. Eliot, who looks almost bored with the situation. Eliot, whose presence makes him want to cower until he disappears completely.

“What did you to him?” 

“I didn’t do anything,” not-Eliot says, and the words are all wrong, the tone is all wrong, the way Eliot is holding himself like a marionette is all wrong. Somehow he knew it would all be wrong, Eliot and himself and the dim light in the bathroom. He feels manic with confusion and inexplicable terror, chest heaving, seconds away from trying to tear something apart.

“This is so tiring,” not-Eliot complains, not even looking at Quentin. “I’m only trying to make you happy.”

“What did you do?” It’s all coming back to him, quick bursts of memory, magic, Blackspire, the Monster, Alice, the Library, but it doesn’t make any fucking sense when he tries to put it together. “You’re supposed to be dead!”

“He tried to kill me,” says the Monster, for that’s who it must be, even though it should be impossible, “but I didn’t die.”

—

Brian loves Eliot, but he has to admit he gets bored sometimes, with only the two of them. It doesn’t help that their house seems to get emptier every time he turns around, empty bookshelves in the living room, nothing on the walls, and even his tomato plants ripped apart by animals in the night. 

There are solutions to this that should be obvious, but Eliot doesn’t like them, scowls when he suggests going out to replace their things, or just going out, period. So he doesn’t suggest it. He stands at the kitchen sink with a cup of tea and looks out the window at where his garden had been. 

—

“What have you been doing to me?” He recognizes his own voice like he’d recognized himself in the mirror, a familiar, cracked-open form with an unfamiliar shape. 

“I’ve been trying to make you happy, Quentin,” the Monster says impatiently, “but you’re very hard to please. I gave you Eliot, and a house, and plants, and books. I saw all the secret wants inside of you, and I gave them to you. And all you do is turn around and ask questions.”

“I didn’t want this,” Quentin says thickly, “I’ve never -“

“You did,” the Monster insists, “you just thought you didn’t deserve it. But I think you do.”

“Please,” Quentin says, and the Monster sighs.

“It’s always the same,” it says, and it takes a step forward.

Belatedly, Quentin thinks to protect himself, but the shield charm he tries to cast sputters and dies on his fingertips.

“Quentin,” the Monster says, and it says it strangely, awkwardly. _Quenn-tinn_. It takes another step forward, and puts a hand on Quentin’s face, ignoring his attempts to twist away. It always does.

—

Eliot appears in the backyard as if out of thin air, bearing tomato seedlings.

“I’m sorry about the old ones,” he says, and Brian smiles at him. The morning is beautiful, and he feels at ease with Eliot at his side and his hands covered in dirt.

“It’s alright,” he says, and he pats the damp earth beside him. “Help me plant them?”

And Eliot smiles at him, sun glinting off of his teeth, and kneels down beside Brian. And the morning turns to afternoon, and the sun stays bright and the sky cloudless. And they plant tomatoes.


End file.
